The present invention relates to a holding clip for holding an attachment member such as a bumper or a front grille of a motor vehicle on a workpiece such as a vehicle body panel.
Holding dips for holding attachment members such as a radiator grille or a front grille on workpieces such as vehicle body panels are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publications No. 60-25643 and No. 3-70651. These clips are constructed to hold attachment members on workpieces, each clip comprising a base plate, a holding portion formed on one of the surfaces of the base plate for receiving and holding the supporting portion of the attachment member such as a radiator grille, and a fixing portion formed on the other surface of the base plate and adapted to be attached to the workpiece such as a vehicle body panel. When their fixing portions are attached to workpieces, these clips allow attachment members to be held on workpieces only by inserting the supporting portions of the attachment members respectively into the holding portions of the clips.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-240207 discloses a temporary fixing clip for fastening which attaches a bumper temporarily in order to thereafter obtain a permanent fixing by using a bolt or the like. This clip also comprises a base plate, a holding portion formed on one of the surfaces of the base plate for receiving and holding the supporting portion of the attachment member such as a bumper, and a fixing portion formed on the other surface of the base plate to be attached to the workpiece such as a vehicle body panel, so that when the supporting portion of the attachment member is simply inserted into the holding portion of the clip, it can hold the attachment member temporarily on the workpiece.
All of the prior-known clips stated above are advantageous in that their mounting operation is easy as it is accomplished by simply inserting the supporting portion of an attachment member into the holding portion of each of the clips. In a case where the attachment member such as a bumper is a heavy article, however, the fastening force is not sufficient to hold it by the clip alone. If a bumper is held on a vehicle body panel only means of any of these prior-known clips, the bumper tends to hang down from the vehicle body panel. This requires troublesome operation or work. That is, after the bumper is fixed temporarily, the operator has to bolt it by one of his hands while supporting it by the other hand so as not to allow it to hang down or sag.